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Online now: 1 member: TABLE SETTER 11; 55 anonymousDiscussion: Offense vs Defense
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| May 4, 2010 stick8 1991 posts | Offense vs Defense It's often been acknowledged in team sports that the best offense is a good defense. Or another way to put it is offense wins you games defense wins you championships. With the emphasis on special bats and good balls plus the 5 run/inning and last inning an open inning format is this true for senior softball? Tell us your thoughts. |
| May 4, 2010 E4/E6 Men's 70 873 posts | Traditional defense has been taken away from us by the lively bat/ball combo. While the addage still holds true it isnt always the case. I'm sure we have all seen offense win many championships because we no longer are able to defend against Senior Bats and Lively ball speeds. |
| May 4, 2010 mad dog Men's 65 4191 posts | both of you are right,offense wins game,defense wins championships.when i first started playing senior ball it was that way. |
| May 5, 2010 stick8 1991 posts | E/4 E/6 and mad dog thank you for your comments. The lively bat ball combo does make it tougher for defense--playing 50 major plus I can personally attest to that!! Isn't it true that you could always pinpoint to a few errors--booting routine infield grounders, bad throw to first, dropped fly ball, etc etc that allow more runs to score than perhaps should be allowed? |
| May 5, 2010 E4/E6 Men's 70 873 posts | Stick, I can only speak for myself. I know I do boot, throw errantly and do drop routine balls now and then. The problem as I see it is there arent as many "routine" ground balls and pop ups hit with current equipment. With diminishing skills come less then desired results in many cases. |
| May 6, 2010 stick8 1991 posts | E4/E6 your points are very valid. The teams we (OKI Players) play against can sure smash it!! This may be a bit off topic but what would you think about moving the bases back 5 feet like usssa? |
| May 6, 2010 E4/E6 Men's 70 873 posts | Stick I'm not sure it would make all that much difference, most left side infielders are playing outside their arm range as it is. We have played 70' bases before without any negative results. If when playing 70' bases why not move the pitcher back 5' too. It doesnt sound like much but after the drop back it may take a lot of sting out of a linedrive. |
| May 6, 2010 stick8 1991 posts | I understand your point about the pitchers mound being moved back 5 ft but doesn't SSUSA already have the pitchers box that goes 5 ft back? |
| May 6, 2010 E4/E6 Men's 70 873 posts | Another 5 would make it a bit safer, I would think. |
| May 7, 2010 stick8 1991 posts | So the pitchers mound where it is now, the 5 ft box and another mound 5 ft further back? |
| May 7, 2010 mad dog Men's 65 4191 posts | have ya notice those hot bat/ball guys don't add anything for a discussion on defense,its all hit,hit,hit and more hitting.i bet they don't even bring a glove to a game. |
| May 7, 2010 Jawood Men's 50 943 posts | It would be a better game (and a bit safer) with everything moved back 5 feet. Standing on third or first can get a little scary with pull hitters up. It's still an offensive game but this would bring a little more defense into play. |
| May 7, 2010 salio2k Men's 60 547 posts | Moving the pitcher back without increasing the arc will make for short pitches. Short pitches have a habit of coming right back to the pitcher. |
| May 7, 2010 Dirty Men's 50 1371 posts | No, it will just mean the pitch will have to be thrown with slightly more speed to carry the extra distance. It will only be shorter if the pitcher allows it. |
| May 7, 2010 stick8 1991 posts | Mad Dog, while it's been my experience that most senior players think offense first do you think that it's possible they if they focused they can play defense better than they might imagine? |
| May 7, 2010 mad dog Men's 65 4191 posts | stick i think they could if they would try.i think the thinking is,why when we'll just score our 5 runs and stay with them till the open inning,and hopefully they would be the home team and bat last. i played on a 55 AAA a couple yrs back that would beat this M+ in our area b/c they loaded up with offense and no real D.we would just hit and run and we played a decent defense,now this was just 1 M+,they didn't do a whole at thier nationals either with that type team.we were just an above average AAA team,but b/c we played some defense we were able to beat them. |
| May 9, 2010 stick8 1991 posts | Good thought mad dog. Do you think it's also possible some players are conserving their energy by lagging on "d" to maximize their "o"? |
| May 9, 2010 mad dog Men's 65 4191 posts | stick,i can't,but yeah i would supposed/belive there are some that do.just like in the pro's there are some who don't hustle like they should.now my prol sometimes is a get caught in that "sometimers"LOL,and brain fart,but thats a different story. |
| May 9, 2010 FOFO Men's 60 284 posts | I have gone round and round with my last to coaches on this topic. Their belief is all we have to do is hit. My belief is that if you only allow the other team only 3 outs and put a pitcher out there that can do more that serve it up and walk batters, you can take a lot of pressure off the offense. Bad hitting games can happen, good defense and pitching should be a constant. |
| May 10, 2010 mad dog Men's 65 4191 posts | FOFO,another with some common sense.don't care how slow the ball is thrown,batters can have off days.pitching and defense are your basic constants,and as we say,"offense wins games,but defense wins championships". |
| May 11, 2010 stick8 1991 posts | Mad Dog I think at the senior age brain farts aren't necessarily more common, just more obvious!! If your playing on a field where the wind is blowing in sustained about 20-25 mph+ could that ignite a more defensive mindset amongst senior teams? |
| May 11, 2010 mad dog Men's 65 4191 posts | i would think so,i know when i play and there is a good wind blowing in,i'll play a little closer if i happen to be playing the outfield,that is in the lower div(AAA and below).in the 2 upper div's you have to guard for that line drive that can skip by ya,so you can't play closer. |
| May 11, 2010 stick8 1991 posts | Good call on that mad dog. I think we've all been burned by skipped ball, especially on a chopped up outfield grass. Would playing 5 infielders against singles hitters be a possibility in the same conditions? |
| May 11, 2010 tattooball 774 posts | Higher inbound speed ='s higher outbound speed. |
| May 11, 2010 stick8 1991 posts | Very true trumpball. Personally I'd rather hit a flatter faster pitch than a higher slower pitch. Since the pitching arc in SSUSA is 6-12 or 6-10 (depending on the umps perception) that 4-6 ft is quite a window. Have you found that many pitchers don't vary their arc very much? |
| March 14, 2011 batman27 Men's 65 24 posts | Question? If U maxed out the first 6 innings, with your five runs per, the only outs you would recieve would be three in the seventh? |
| March 14, 2011 batman27 Men's 65 24 posts | Defense is the dominating winning factor |
| March 14, 2011 stick8 1991 posts | To answer your question batman27, yes that is potentially true. |
| March 14, 2011 batman27 Men's 65 24 posts | So run restriction is the great equalizer. |
| March 14, 2011 batman27 Men's 65 24 posts | cant get my brain wrapped around the 5 run rule, seems like the better teams dont get anything from that rule, if they could score 8 to 10 runs per, the advantage goes to the team that scores 3 to 7per with a great defense,correct? |
| March 14, 2011 stick8 1991 posts | Batman27, in certain games the 5 run rule can be an equalizer if teams get their 5 each inning. I've personally been in games where it's 25-25 or 30-30 going into the open inning. Great defense doesn't really have an equalizer "rule". You either catch it or you don't. |
| March 14, 2011 Gary19 Men's 50 2609 posts | Oh for the days where you had to earn your ups. |
| March 14, 2011 duke1953 Men's 50 16 posts | thats easy gary go back to asa bats and balls and defense will survive |
| March 14, 2011 duke1953 Men's 50 16 posts | but that wont happen with miken being senior softball major sponser |
| March 14, 2011 batman27 Men's 65 24 posts | Food for thought, allow only major league wooden bats, lots of models, should be something there for everyone. Anybody ever hit slo pitch balls with major league bats, POP? duralibility sure would level the playing field kinda hard to juice them where it made much of a difference,, probably be sold as juiced senior bats LOL |
| March 14, 2011 Gary19 Men's 50 2609 posts | duke, it also won't work with prideless old guys who insist on the special bats. |
| March 14, 2011 saddlebrookrick 52 posts | Gary I wish they would ban all special bats so you would be happy or make an extra special special bat just for you and then youd be happy and peaceful. |
| March 15, 2011 Gary19 Men's 50 2609 posts | Rick I can, and do, live with the bats though I don't understand why they are 'necessary'. I just don't want any more whacky rules to accommodate them. We have enough of those because of the bats already. |
| March 15, 2011 Webbie25 Men's 70 2414 posts | Good thread to bring back. Defense is still there, it is just overshadowed by the offense right now. I give credit to our defense in winning the TOC. We did score a lot of runs, but we made very few errors, made some very good plays and didn't let teams get going by making mistakes. R&R has the type of defense that can pressure an offense, too. Personally, I love playing outfield, tracking fly balls, throwing guys out occasionally, keeping a 'rabbit' on first on a hit. Playing good defense is as satisfying as hitting one 400 feet. Gary-the pendulum has swung many times-wood bats to metal-uptick, metal with better balls- uptick, metal with hot balls-big uptick, ooops pendulum too far toward offense, RF80 downtick, ooops, a bit too far, Demarini-uptick, doublewall uptick, composite-uptick-ooops is it time to downtick? |
| March 15, 2011 mad dog Men's 65 4191 posts | webbie i think so,by using the 52-275/300 ball.played last nite in a kids league,and we used one of the first one of those made by trump(pebble grain ball) and was very surprised in how it performed.i had used the old smooth one and it had a penchant for knuckling,this one didn't hardly knuckle,that i could see. i hear that AD Starr has one that performs even better,if so i would be ok with using this ball for us.oh and it would be a whole lot safer for pitchers and inf'ers. |
| March 15, 2011 stick8 1991 posts | Heck batman27 why not allow pitchers to throw overhand? They have modified underhand fastpitch, why not modified overhand? |
| March 15, 2011 mad dog Men's 65 4191 posts | stick8,don't laugh,we had an overhand softball league in los angeles back in the late 70's. |
| March 15, 2011 stick8 1991 posts | Mad Dog, in this day of gimmicky rules & ideas it wouldn't suprise me if that someone tried to resurrect that. |
| March 15, 2011 batman27 Men's 65 24 posts | well if we move the rubber back to 65 ft. overhand might have to happen, then we would have pitchers with sore arms Lol.Underhand would be more like bowling for strikes. I thought a read yesterday someone said there was a league that didnt allow hitting up the middle. that going toooooo far if you ask me. lets see now, 2 home plate's,,catchers gear on the pitcher, limited home runs, multible players to run for you, 5 run rule,hr limits. time limit.Hot bats with mush balls on the way. Yep we are a gimmicky game. and in spite of all that we still manage to have fun,oh forgot we rate teams also. Are Players rated? I Think they might be. somewhere in there you have 11 defensive players. And it is called Senior Softball, all changes made, were believed to be for the good of the players. We have adjusted to every one of those changes, some are harder to take than others, I believe there are 9 Different Senior Assoc.. I believe we are bigger than anyone would have imagined back in the 70's , Most guys quit before 35. I think we have a great game because we the players make it great, all opinions are listened to on these forums. that is a very good thing, we know what we are passionate about and share with each other those thoughts. I appreciate everyone's input on here, So as we move on this spring, I think it is time to PLAY BALL. |
| March 15, 2011 mad dog Men's 65 4191 posts | batman,the park i play at on mondays has a no middle rule,anything hit hard 10" either side or over the rubber is an auto out.its a kids league also,not senior ball. there have been hr limits since the 80's so that is not new. |
| March 16, 2011 batman27 Men's 65 24 posts | ahhhhhh Kids ball, thanks for the clarification Yep I know, (hr rules),Ive played slo pitch since 1968 end of wooden bat era. 1963 with fast pitch teams. Ive pretty much lived it all. I was alluding to all the Have an Awesome Day. The is in continual adjustment, gotta go charge a truck battery, finally stoped raining up here, (North Idaho) |
